A Painting or is it Repix?

As an artist who has worked with traditional painting materials to create mixed media paintings, I find myself drawn to a painterly approach when I edit my photographs. One of the newest apps that I’ve added to my painterly arsenal is Repix. I find it interesting that when I paint, I go for a realistic effect and when I edit photos I go for a painterly effect. For me the beauty is that place in between – is it a painting or is it photograph? I had the chance to interview the brains behind the Repix app, Ilkka Teppo. (Ilkka has built products and businesses for over a decade at larger companies and start-ups. He’s connecting the dots between business, design and engineering.)

Geri: Please tell me a bit about yourself? How did you get started in app development? How long did it take to develop Repix and how many are on your team?

Ilkka: We are a small team based in Helsinki, Finland and we make apps that inspire creativity. We first started developing apps for mobiles and tablets last year and we haven’t looked back for a second. Repix is currently our main focus. In addition to Repix, we built a funky painting app for iPad called Sumo Paint. We have a strong background in web-based image editing apps.

We have been working with Repix already nine months and have been developing and experimenting with lots of stuff. Our aim is to make Repix the most inspiring photo editor available to users of all abilities.

Photo Credit: Geri Centonze, Portrait of a Young Man

Geri: I love the interface on Repix – when I’m working I almost feel like I’m at my art desk painting. Do you have an art or painting background or did you get traditional artists to help you design the interface?

Ilkka: We spent lots of time and created many versions before finding the right UX. It also helps that we have an awesome designer in our team who is passionate about the right user experience. That’s come through in the app like you say and that’s been great. Recreating a real life experience with the brushes is exactly what we wanted to do and the result of that is that users of the app are being inspired to create so much more.

Geri: What has been the biggest challenge in developing Repix?

Ilkka: To maintain the balance between simplicity and all the things we would like to add. We wanted people to experience the brushes first and based on the feedback, decide what and when to bring more features. Fortunately for us, users of the app so far like our work and are asking for more. That’s the best position to be in.

Blowing Bubbles

Geri: In a very highly competitive app category, why do you think Repix has stood out among the rest?

Ilkka: We believe the overall quality and the simplicity of the app are the most important things. We looked at the photo category and its true that there are lots of apps, but overall quality is still fairly low. If you build something that’s beautiful to use and offers something totally unique, you stand a chance of getting success.

Portrait of a Horse

Geri: The latest update was better than I imagined and I understand there’s even more coming. Can you give us a hint as to what’s in store with the next update?

Ilkka: Our aim with Repix is to ensure we keep innovating and introducing new features that our users will love and that will attract new ones too. Right now we’re working hard on some super cool new brushes with some stunning effects, more generic editing tools and overall quality and usability improvements. Overall, we aim to make Repix the most inspiring photo editor available. (Geri’s Note: Since this interview was conducted the latest version of Repix was released and includes Spotlight Filters, Frames tool, improved editing speed, new editing tools, direct sharing to Flickr, full support of EXIF data).

Geri: Do you have any other apps in the works?

Ilkka: We have a few concept level things we are planning, but nothing yet to announce. Stay tuned!

Geri: I can’t wait!!!

If you’re new to Repix, here’s a quick tutorial showing my typical workflow.

Choose your photo from your Camera Roll (or experiment with one of the images in the Starters folder)

Pinch the photo to resize and then using the Erase tool, completely erase your image. (Hint: if you tap the + button on the erase tool the result will be a blank black canvas instead of white)

Choose a brush to paint in your image. For this tutorial, I chose the Daubs brush.

Pinch to enlarge the image and the brush size will reduce automatically which allows for more detail when using the Repix brushes.

I like a little of the image to show through in the detailed areas. To do this use the Undoer tool around the eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

Next I used the Charcoal brush to smooth some of the edges and also added a frame (a new feature with the recent update). You can re-size the frame by pinching with your fingers and tap the plus button of your frame choice to go from white to black.

For this next step I saved the image and opened in Snapseed to rotate 90 degrees to the right.

Next, I loaded the rotated image back into Repix and applied the Stage Spotlight filter (one of the new features available with in-app purchase as of the last update)

One final rotation (using Snapseed) and below is my final painted image.

There are so many more styles you can achieve using this app. I think Ilkka will be reading this, so if you are Ilkka, here is my wish list for the next update:

Excellent tutorial, Geri. My wish list for updates has just one item: color adjustments on the eraser tool. I emailed the developer & got a very nice reply, so I have hope. Such a great app, with good support!

Ilkka is excellent at responding! I asked him to vary the opacity of the undoer tool and he did it a while back. Initially the Undoer would completely wipe out the effect and now it happens gradually. =) He did say he noted my wish list so I’m looking forward to the next update.

I feel the same as Jen B. !! I have the app but was not exactly sure what I was doing and now I have a much better understanding of it!!!! Thanks so much Geri! Excited to start playing around with it more now and it was really interesting to learn more about the developer! Thanks very much!

This was awesome! I use repix all the time but always wish I could get the size of the brush just a little smaller since I like to add a bit of detal around the main focus point. Also, are the in-app purchases for the whole set of brushes or each one? Must know!
Are you on IG?

Hi Mike – Previously there was an in-app purchase for $4.99 which was for the entire set of brushes. I don’t know if that’s still available since I have all of them now. I would like the ability to enlarge even more for the detail (I must pass that along to Ilkka!). Yes, I am on IG @gericentonze but the majority of my work is on EyeEm @gericentonze, Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/93659360@N08/. I also have a blog where I post artist interviews, mobile photo news, tutorials, etc. http://iartchronicles.com =) Would love to see your Repix work – please tag to #wearejuxt_repix on IG!

You just get better and better, find treasure troves of information, tutorials and new ideas. It is so cool to see what others do….better than sitting down and reading a magazine. I as not using Repix correctly that is for sure…boy, sometimes I do things the hard way. The aremaC is a bit advanced for me….but in your hands it will be magic….thanks, sharon

Oh my.. this is a wonderful app. I’m so happy to have found your site and am off now to buy this app! Great tutorial too. I’ve wanted an app like this in my arsenal and hadn’t yet discovered it. (PS – My web site is idle at the moment because of something G+ has done to my web album images and the code available to me. The code I used to use to incorporate photos in my Picasa albums has vanished… SIGH… must check back again to see if it’s been restored since my last check.)

Wonderful tutorial, thanks. I love doing painterly edits too! Yours are lovely and inspiring. It’s so beneficial when the developers work closely with the artists. By working together, truly great art can be made and shared!

Hi Geri…. Just starting to use Repix and I love it. But there was one thing I wanted to do tonight that I couldn’t figure out how to do.

I erased the bottom of the image, and then I wanted to color it in a different color… could not see a tool to do that. Do I need to save it and go to procreate or something else to brush in a new color where I have erased?